SHS won't reopen until govt pays indebtedness
Second-cycle schools will not reopen for the 2016-2017 academic year if the government fails to pay all outstanding amounts due the schools.
Advertisement
The government’s indebtedness to the schools includes unpaid absorbed fees and feeding grant, Ghana government scholarships and ‘progressively’ free scholarships.
Government of Ghana grant for administration has been in arrears since 2011.
“We are appealing to the Minister of Education, the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council and the GES Management to expedite action on the concerns raised, otherwise it will be extremely difficult to reopen schools for the 2016-2017 academic year,” the President of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), Mrs Cecilia Kwakye Cofie, said at a news conference in Accra last Wednesday.
Breakdown
Explaining further, she said the absorbed fees (subsidies) for the second and third terms of the 2015/2016 academic year had not been paid, while feeding grants for the three northern regions, northern Volta and northern Brong Ahafo were also in arrears for the second and third terms.
That, she said, had brought serious problems to the schools, as students were being fed on credit, while heads of institutions were being harassed by creditors.
Mrs Cofie said ‘progressively free’ scholarships for the second and term terms of the 2015-2016 academic year were also in arrears and that “Ghana government scholarships for beneficiary students have not been paid for the whole 2015-2016 academic year”.
In addition to those problems, she said, “The feeding fee of GH¢3.30 per student per day for three meals is woefully inadequate. This has resulted in huge debts for the schools.
“The feeding fee should be increased by 100 per cent to GH¢6.60, since the prices of goods and services have gone up drastically since 2014 when the fees were fixed,” she added.
Mrs Cofie said the price of gari, for instance, had shot up from GH¢2.40 to GH¢10 per American tin.
Utilities
With regard to utilities, she said the fee of GH¢10 per student per term for boarders and GH¢5 per student per term for day students being paid by the students was unable to cover the huge electricity and water bills of schools.
The CHASS President said the heads of schools wanted the fee for electricity to be separated from that for water, adding that the current amounts should be appreciably increased to meet the bills charged by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).
She also said there was high expenditure on sanitation, which included dislodging of solid and liquid waste, while the cost of fumigation, resulting from bed bug infestation in the schools, was very high.
Mrs Cofie explained that the sanitation fee was part of the absorbed fees which had not been paid for the second and the third terms.
The 2016/2017 academic year for senior high schools is scheduled to begin on September 5.
